Procurement body gathering info from both sides to ensure typically busy period is negotiated smoothly

Crown Commercial Service is planning a bulk buy of IT hardware to help cover the public sector’s typically busy end-of-financial-year procurement period.

CCS has announced that it is using the £4bn Technology Products 2 framework to undertake an “aggregated further competition… for readily available branded IT hardware”. Until 15 December the organisation is “gathering expressions of interest” from the 29 suppliers that feature on lot one of the framework.

Lot one covers PCs, as well as audiovisual, peripherals, and networking, hardware. It also includes operating systems and commodity software where it is pre-installed on a machine by the manufacturer.

From 15 December until 10 January, public sector bodies will be invited to share details of their requirements. CCS then intends to award a contract on 27 February, with goods delivered to customers during March – the last month of the public sector fiscal year.

The aggregated competition “will be ideal for you if you need delivery of products by the end of this financial year”, CCS said.

The last month of the financial year is typically a busy time for public sector procurement, as remaining budgets are invested and necessary purchases pushed through.

Suppliers on lot one of the Technology Products 2 framework consist entirely of IT resellers, with no major vendors featured. Instead, hardware manufacturers – including Dell, HP, and Lenovo – have a separate lot, geared to high-volume purchases.